


Stay the Night

by isadora



Category: Homeland
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 19,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isadora/pseuds/isadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything changes. Everything stays the same. </p><p>Not entirely canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Consciousness swims in slowly and painfully, dragging Carrie from what feels like a much needed slumber. She can feel the hangover without needing to open her eyes; her tongue feels heavy and her head is pulsing. 

She can’t remember where she is which is a pretty bad indicator; her first guess is a hotel room from the starchiness of the sheets, but she’d have to open her eyes to find out and that isn’t high on her list of priorities.

A quiet whimper escapes when she tries to move and her head and stomach protest violently in synchrony and she lies still for a moment before cracking her eye open a fraction, too curious not to look around.

When her vision unblurs, the first thing she sees is her bra thrown haphazardly over the back of a chair; the rest of her clothes are scattered between there and the door. There’s nothing too unusual about that though; she’s hardly the tidiest at the best of times.

All things considered, she’s feeling pretty relaxed about her morning when there’s a soft but unmistakeably male sigh from about a foot behind her.

Fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

Quinn comes round as he always done, sharply awake and ready for action. It takes him a fraction of a second to realise he isn't in immediate danger and another moment to register the thumping headache keeping him company. 

He slides an eye open cautiously and looks around without moving. He's naked which is unusual; his clothes are thrown across the floor which is unusual too. Stranger things than a drunk night have happened to him though; and as he lies there he remembers snippets of the night before; the ill-advised team building exercise Saul had insisted on; the decision a group of them had made to hit the hotel bar; Saul joining them at the hotel bar. He dimly remembers doing shots of something that was on fire, of talking to Carrie. 

He smiles briefly, wondering how her evening ended; she has a tendency towards bad decision making at the best of times and adding alcohol to the mix usually results in her taking home the drunkest or most unavailable man within a mile radius. He's seen it a million times and it doesn't stop being funny. 

He wonders briefly what she would be like; he thinks they'd be a good fit, neither tending to romanticise sex. He imagines (more often than he'd like) that she would be vocal, verging on bossy; that she'd like it rough and hard and brutal. Too much crazy for him to go within a mile of, but nonetheless he's hard thinking about it, and it's a day off and he's in a hotel bed so he doesn't feel too bad about sliding his hand down his cock with a squeeze. It's been too long since he had the luxury of time and arousal, although his body feels oddly lax and loose rather than tightly coiled. 

He allows himself a quiet sigh as his strokes speed and the base of his spine seems to tense. 

If he was anything other than a black ops specialist with a predilection for paranoia he might not have heard the noise behind him; nothing more than a fraction of a huff; but he is and he does, freezing. His heart thumps and a cold sweat coats his palm. 

Someone is in his bed. This is not good. This is so not good, because he doesn't remember taking anyone back. He doesn't remember having sex. He isn't going to know this person's name, and he's probably going to get a slapping for that. 

He kicks himself internally for getting drunk enough to let his guard down. He's half soft now; disgusted he stretches and wipes his hand on the sheet. There is literally no way this morning can get any worse, he thinks. No way. 

******


	3. Chapter 3

They stare at each other for a long, silent moment before Carrie breaks it. 

"Fuck" she says flatly, and he groans, flopping back onto the bed. 

"What happened?" He asks, trying not to look at her. He doesn't want to see whatever is in her face. 

"I don't know" she says, her voice uneven, "I don't remember anything. I'm so sorry."

He has to look now and there's definitely lip-wobble happening. He toys with the idea of trying to comfort her but somehow with her and him both naked it feels like a risky prospect and verbal reassurance isn't really his thing. 

"Don't apologise" he finally manages, "we're both equally to blame for what happened or...didn't happen."

She brightens a little at that. 

"If neither of us remember then...there's nothing to remember."

Relief washes over him and he nods. 

"Let's just not talk about this again" he says, "pretend it never happened and go back to how we were."

She nods, turns her head and smiles at him and in that moment, hungover as he is, when the sunlight catches her hair and the sheet slips to give him a glimpse of pale skin, he wishes there was another way. Then she sits up and the moment is broken, and he focuses on the ceiling as she wraps the sheet around her and begins to gather her clothes from the floor. 

And if he sneaks a look as she steps into the bathroom to get dressed...well, he's only human. 


	4. Chapter 4

They seem to be oddly lucky after that. Nobody knows (or dares comment) that they spent the night together. They're both adult enough (or used to one night stands) to not mention it; there's no impact on their work. They still bicker and get hauled into Saul's office on a regular basis; they still work together on missions and hit the bar afterwards, and nothing changes until everything changes. 

It's a slow process at first; he initially worries she's relapsing when she stops coming out with the team, when her moods swing and she veers between furious and tearful in the same tirade. 

He takes her to one side, catching her by the shoulders as she catches her breath between spitting venom at a junior analyst whose only crime had been leaving the window open. 

"Carrie" he says as gently as he can, "is everything okay?"

Her eyes flash angrily at him and he's reminded how small she is as he looks down at her.

"You drew the short straw then? Dealing with crazy Carrie?"

He looks at her evenly as she scrubs a hand through her hair, a ball of nervous energy. 

"Are you done yet?"

"No! This is bullshit...why does everyone assume there's something wrong with me just because..."

He cuts her off by putting a hand over her mouth and regrets it instantly when she bites it. 

"Carrie, you're acting a bit crazy. Your mood is all over the place and you just fucking bit me. Now I'm going to ask again: is everything okay?"

She stares at him for a moment as though she can't figure out what to say, and then reaches up and kisses him. They're in the corridor at work and anyone could walk past; it's sloppy bordering on violent as she pulls him down by his shirt collar to meet her. He pulls away quickly, catching her hands and blinking rapidly in surprise. 

"Carrie, what the fuck?"

She smiles, suddenly calm again, and shakes her head. 

"Sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I'm fine. Thanks for asking."

She smiles again, a flash of charm and then turns tail and heads back into the office leaving him somewhere between confused, irritated and aroused. 

****


	5. Chapter 5

Peter Quinn has never been one to dream. Sleep, like most things, is functional for him; he takes no more than he needs and doesn't complain when he misses it. Dreaming is a waste of hours and it annoys him when he wakes with the taste of Carrie's lips on his tongue. 

He dreams about her almost every night and his mood suffers for it, becoming as irritable with her and their colleagues as she is with him. 

The nights when he doesn't dream are a blessing and a curse and he wakes furious with himself for his weakness; to be so obsessed, so off his game over a single kiss. 

It's the morning after one of those nights when he gets the call from Saul. Intel from a mole is about to change hands and he's up. Simple mission; get there, watch as one of Saul's men draws the mole out, take the kill shot. He repeats the words in his head as he fits the silencer anyway; the repetition soothes him, focuses him. He's in a good place. He's calm. 

And then his ride turns up and it's Carrie. 

Well, fuck. 

She's calmer than she has been in months; he knows that activity relaxes her and it's a relief not to have her ranting and raving. She still drives like a crazy person but that seems to be expected after all these years. They drive in silence for half an hour or so before she finally cracks.

“Saul tell you what we’re here for?”

He nods silently, fingering the canvas bag by his feet.

“He didn’t tell you it was going to be me, did he?”

He shrugs, knowing he’s being an arse.

“It wouldn’t make a difference” he says flatly, and she lets it slide, shifting gears and stretching her arms.

They drive in silence for a while more before she checks her watch and declares they have time to stop for food. He’s hungry enough not to complain and they grab drive-through as a concession to the fact they are still at work. When he pays she looks sharply at him and he twists his head.

“I know I’m being a dick, the least I can do is shout you dinner.”

“You could stop being a dick” she points out without venom, and he elbows her

“Let’s be realistic here?”

She laughs suddenly and shakes her head, but lets him pay and the silence is more comfortable from then on. By the time they’re at the motel and setting up he’s almost feeling human and companiable again, and wishes her luck as she slips out of the back door to circle the building and meet her contacts in the park. He sets himself up on the roof, enjoying the bite of the wind against his skin, the scent of pine. He’s always loved the countryside. 

He can see her, blonde hair catching the lights as she waits on the corner. She looks casual, relaxed. She’s ready. He’s ready. Right on time the black sedan pulls up and two men get out, briefcase in tow. So far so good. He looks down briefly, checks his positioning, his aim, and as he does so there’s a bang and his heart jumps into his mouth.

He will never forget the sound the shot makes. He will never forget the noise Carrie makes; a high, pained gasp as her knees give out beneath her, the wet thump of lead tearing through flesh. His hands shake as he lines up his shot, knowing he only has seconds. Saul's voice on the comms in his ear is taut and angry but he doesn't have time to listen, doesn't have time to do anything but breathe, line up the shot and fire. Breathe, line up the shot and fire. Both men drop to the ground, eyes unseeing, and he flings down his gun, sprinting for the door to the stairs. 

"Clean this up" he snaps at his backup without a backward glance, and takes the steps two at a time. 

When he gets outside operatives are already there and an ambulance is on it's way. She's conscious as he pushes through and grips his hand with surprising strength 

"The fucker shot me" she says through gritted teeth and he squeezes back, shucking off his jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders. 

"I was there" he says tightly "I didn't realise it was coming though, I'm sorry."

She shakes her head at him. 

"Not your fault at all, don't be such a pussy" she sucks in a hard breath and digs her fingers into the back of his hand. "I'm going to be fine, anyway. Soon as they get this fucking bullet out of my arm"

"Not long" he says reassuringly, trying to ignore just how much of her blood he's wearing. She swears quietly and rubs her hand across her forehead, smearing even more blood on her face. 

She smiles, looking oddly calm, and tugs his hand to bring him closer. 

"I'm sorry I tried to kiss you" she says, softly enough that nobody else will hear. She looks self deprecating, which is an odd look in someone as bloodstained as she is, and he can see how it looked now. 

"You shouldn't be" he says, fixing her with an intense look, and she blinks. 

"Maybe not the time to be talking about it while you're bleeding all over my jacket" he comments, startling a laugh out of her. "You just surprised me."

She mulls that over for a moment, brow furrowed, and then her face tightens in pain again and he puts a hand on her forehead, trying to soothe her. 

"Two minutes out" shouts someone from the front of the ambulance and he breathes a sigh of relief. They take the last corner at speed and pull up at the medical centre with a screech. When they wheel Carrie out Quinn suddenly wonders how much blood she's lost, because her eyelids are flickering and she's ghost-pale. 

"Carrie?" Asks one of the medics sharply, "Carrie, can you hear us?"

More medics crowd around and Peter finds himself on the outside as they fuss around hooking her up to an IV fluid line. He sees her, grey and clammy, through the hustle and feels sick to the pit of his stomach, a guilt that he hasn't felt for years gnawing at him. He paces around the waiting room until he's asked (and then told) to stop, and then until he's threatened with ejection from the unit. 

What feels like hours later they tell him she started to go into shock and needed fluids and inotropes but no transfusion. He's allowed in to see her; she's pale but conscious and smiles shyly to see him. 

"Don't you have work to do?" She asks, her pleased face belying the abrasive tone. 

"Saul told me to keep an eye on you" he says, which isn't a total lie, "he seemed to think you would self discharge and bleed all over the CIA."

She snorts and shrugs. 

"That sounds feasible" she agrees, "there was the time in Budapest..."

She's interrupted by a doctor opening the door. 

"Ms Matheson...I'm Dr Martinez. It's all looking fine but I'd like to have a word with you in private about some of your blood results."

Her reaction isn't what Quinn expects; she looks almost resigned, drawing in a shaky breath before nodding. 

"Can you give me a moment?" She asks, and there's something incredibly fragile in her expression. Something wrong, he thinks. Still, he has no choice and leaves with an even expression, taking the opportunity to call Saul. 

"How is she?" He asks straight away. 

"Seems fine, though they'll keep her in for observation. Doctor's seeing her now. Something came up on the bloods"

There's a murmur in the background and Peter thinks Saul is probably in a meeting; it's testament to both him and Carrie that they have such a strong relationship despite their rocky past and the pressures their jobs put on them. 

"I wouldn't worry, Peter. They just have to mention anything confidentially."

They told me about her diagnosis, he thinks, but murmurs his assent. 

"I appreciate you looking out for Carrie" Saul says, his voice low. "Is that all there is to it?"

"Are you questioning my professionalism?" Quinn asks evenly, trying to assess his reaction as he does so. 

"I'm questioning the effect Carrie tends to have on people" Saul returns calmly, "I just need to know we don't have a problem."

"I look after my team" he retorts, "as long as that's not a problem we're fine."

"Good. Let me know if anything changes."


	6. Chapter 6

Inside, Carrie has her head in her hands. 

"Are you aware that you're 8 weeks pregnant?"  

"Yes. But nobody else is."

"Including your partner?"

She blinks. 

"He's not my partner" she says uncertainly, and the doctor shifts awkwardly. 

"I'm sorry...I assumed..."

She shakes her head and he stops. 

"I'd like to do a scan and just make sure everything is alright in light of the blood loss."

She nods mutely; it's been so easy not to think about this until now. Panic sweeps over her. She cannot do this. 

She cannot do this. 

******

She sends Peter back to work, promising that she won't leave the hospital until he comes back, and then allows a nurse to wheel her to the antenatal unit. 

The gel is cold on her flat belly and if the staff notice her eyes red they don't comment on it. She feels sick and exhausted. 

"Everything looks fine, Miss Matheson" the operator reassures her with a smile, "we'll want you back at 12 weeks to have another look but there's nothing to worry about right now."

Her face must give her away because the operators smile fades. 

"Any concerns we can help with today?" She asks apprehensively, and Carrie shakes her head, turning away. The silence stretches awkwardly until the gel has been wiped off, her gown straightened and she's back in her room and the doctor, who's clearly been briefed, comes in again. 

"Do you have any concerns?" He asks gently, and she wants to cry. 

"I don't want to talk about it" she says flatly, and he nods, unfazed. 

"Is there anything I can refer you for?"

She understands what he means and chews her lip. Possibilities turn over in her mind; she keeps coming back to the haunted look in Quinn's eye when he talked about his son. Is it crueller to take that away from him again or to lumber him with the responsibility when he has no tie to her? Would he ever have to know? Could she keep something like that from someone who was at minimum a good friend to her?

“I need to think about it” she says firmly, and the doctor gets the hint and leaves. When he’s gone the adrenaline fades and pain starts to kick in again. She smoothes a hand over her belly pensively and closes her eyes as reality fades out.

****


	7. Chapter 7

Quinn is there when she wakes up and she doesn’t know if that makes her feel better or worse. 

“How’re you doing?”

He looks tired, she realises, and feels a flash of guilt for what she’s about to do.

“I’m okay. Ready to go home. Peter, there’s something I need to tell you...”

He looks sharply at her, reading the tension in her shoulders and the tremble of her lip.

“What is it?”

She presses two fingers against the bridge of her nose and takes a deep breath.

“Doesn’t matter” she says, and hates herself for it, “I think it’s the painkillers talking. I was going to say...I’m really glad you’re here.”

He appraises her for a long moment, weighing up whether he’s going to challenge it but decides not to.

“They said you can go when you’re ready” he says, “I’ll give you a ride to your place.”

He can’t quite hide the hurt he feels that she changed her mind about whatever she was going to say to him and she can read that too. Panic builds in her until she feels like she could scream.

“Sure, thanks.”

He looks away when she gets up and starts dressing and she thinks with a snort that neither of them remember their night together so it probably isn’t strange that he doesn’t want to see her naked. But obviously at some point they had. Fuck, it was never meant to happen like this.

They drive back to her place slowly and in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Quinn follows her in even though she doesn’t ask and makes a beeline for the fridge.

“You have no edible food” he announces with absolutely no surprise. “Apart from a jar of pickles. Why the fuck do you have a jar of pickles?”

“They taste good” she says defensively, “And they are edible.”

He sighs, appearing in the doorway with the jar under his arm.

“I’m calling for takeout. You have to eat something, the hospital said you’d missed lunch.”

The pain from her arm is making her cranky but he’s right and she is hungry, somewhere amongst the panic, exhaustion and ever-present low grade nausea. 

“Can I have the pickles?” she asks, and he returns with a spoon and the jar, rolling his eyes.

“You could not be any weirder” he grumbles, dialling for pizza.

******

An hour later, full of pizza, she’s curled up on the sofa massaging her full stomach. Quinn sits next to her channel-hopping.

“Thanks for looking out for me today” she says tentatively, and he turns to look at her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t look out for you better” he says gravely, “I feel like I fucked up.”

“You couldn’t have known” she points out, relieved they’re on relatively safe ground, “Not without being psychic. And you got the two of them down before I even hit the ground.”

He shrugs in acknowledgement and she looks at his profile, washed in blue from the tv screen. He’s beautiful; it’s the best word for him. Sharp features, dark eyes; cheekbones you could cut glass on. Any child of his would be beautiful.

Feeling her watching him, he turns fully to face her, expression serious.

“Why did you kiss me at Langley?”

Fuck. There goes the safe ground.

She can’t hold his gaze; looks at her hands, knotted on her lap.

“I wanted to see if there was anything there.”

Not untrue, really.

“And?”

He’s invading her space now; she can feel the body heat coming off him.

“And you pulled away” she says with a laugh, “Smart man.”

Quinn inspects her for a long moment, and slowly, deliberately raises a hand to push her hair back. He rests his thumb against her cheekbone, leans in and brushes his lips against hers, so light she’s not sure it happened until he tilts his head and catches her lower lip between his teeth.

Her breath escapes in a gasp and she pushes him back, one hand on his chest.

“I can’t...”

His eyes are almost black in the half light, unreadable.

“You can’t what?”

She doesn’t answer for a long moment, getting her breathing back under control, building up her walls. Fuck, she wants this so badly, but...

“You should go” she says, and he laughs humourlessly, shaking his head.

“What the fuck, Carrie?”

She turns her head to look at the wall and he swears beside her. She hears the sound of him moving across the room, the door slamming and then a few seconds later the front door clicking shut. His engine starts up outside and only then does she let herself cry; angry, frustrated, scared; nobody to go to and no idea what to do. 

She sobs until she has no energy or tears left and drags a blanket over herself until sleep comes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goodness, I'm actually updating this. I'm so sorry for the delay! Just been re-inspired by the new series. Feedback would be so gratefully received!

Several days later she makes it into work, arm heavily bandaged, and meets Quinn outside Saul’s office. He has a cup of coffee in his hand and looks like he might have been waiting there a while. On anyone else his demeanour might look nervous.

“I was a dick” he says abruptly, as close as he comes to apologetic, thrusting the coffee at her, “I’m sorry. And you’re right. I shouldn’t have crossed that line.”

The line was crossed ages ago, she thinks. And I wanted you to. 

“It’s fine” she says, “I’m really sorry if I made things worse. We okay?”

He nods and gives her a genuine smile.

“We’re fine.”

No we’re not, she thinks.

 

\-------------------

 

She keeps her mouth shut though, and they’re doing fine after that for a few weeks, almost back to their previous easy relationship, when her morning sickness starts to kick in with a vengeance. She skips a couple of days of work but then realises she’s just going to have to get through it and forces herself in. The nausea is persistent and unpredictable, spiking at seemingly random triggers, anything from the smell of fresh brewed coffee to standing too quickly.

Trying to eat before midday is pointless and traumatic and Quinn finds her at her desk, glowering at a bottle of water and holding her head in her hands. She’s so dehydrated her tongue feels swollen and she aches all over.

“Go home” he says gently and she shakes her head stubbornly.

“I’m fine” she says, swallowing hard. He steps around the desk and puts a hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t like this caring, soft version of Quinn. It’s easier to think of him as the black-ops specialist who’ll run off on a mission and out of her life at the moment. The concept of a sensitive, reliable Quinn makes her insides squirm; it means he deserves to know, that she has to tell him. It makes her irritable and want to shrug his hand off but the touch is soothing and she’s feeling pathetic enough to allow it.

“Carrie, you’ve been sick for ages. Have you seen a doctor?” he asks, his hand still warm on her shoulder. His concern gnaws at her.

“Yeah...he said just to rest and get fluids” she lies, and he narrows his eyes at her.

“And you’re doing neither.”

“I’ve got water”

“Unless you’ve perfected the art of osmosis, that isn’t going to help much.”

She groans quietly as her stomach lurches again; she can almost feel the little fucker wiggling around sometimes, although she knows it’s purely psychological.

“Let me take you home” he says gently, and to her mortification she feels tears springing at the back of her eyes. She cannot deal with this, she cannot be looked after like this. It’s too raw, and she manages to muster enough strength of will to duck her shoulder away from his hand and get to her feet.

“I’m fine” she repeats more firmly, and sensible as he is he backs off, hands raised in surrender but a half smile on his face.

“Offer’s open” he says, and retreats out of the door leaving Carrie to her misery.


	9. Chapter 9

She tells her sister that weekend. She doesn’t really want to but she needs to, she thinks. She’ll feel better for it.

Maggie listens quietly, expression sympathetic but even as Carrie explains everything; the one night stand she doesn’t remember, the slow realisation she was pregnant and the conflicting emotions she’d felt on finding out after the accidental shooting that the baby was fine.

“Wait” interjects Maggie, “The guy who knocked you up then shot you?!”

They stare at each other in silence for a second and then Carrie lets out a belly laugh, bending double.

“What am I doing?” she asks, borderline hysterical, and Maggie wraps an arm around her shoulder.

“What you do is your decision” she says soothingly, “But you’re not an indecisive person. So maybe you need to think about what’s giving you so much difficulty around this.”

“On paper it’s very straightforward” 

“But?”

Carrie sighs

“It’s complicated. I don’t....I can’t tell you everything. But I don’t think it’s fair to make a decision without him knowing. And I don’t want to tell him.”

Maggie squeezes her arm.

“I don’t want to say it but you’re going to have to” she says sympathetically, “The sooner you discuss it the more open your options are.”

“I can’t have a baby” Carrie says, her voice tight. “I can’t look after myself, let alone a baby.”

“You can” says Maggie gently, “But it will take work and you’ll need support. You have to understand that.”

“What about my meds?”

“You’ll need to see a specialist about that...but there are plenty of options, Carrie. Women have babies all the time.”

Carrie sighs and flops back on the sofa.

“Women put children up for adoption all the time too.”

Maggie nods

“Whatever you decide to do, you know dad and I will support you 100%, right?”

Carrie’s eyes fill up again and she bites her lip, turning her head into Maggie’s shoulder.

“I know.”

 

****

 

 

Monday comes and Quinn appears in the doorway, arms folded.

“Feeling better?”

She isn’t much but she nods anyway and forces a smile. He rakes his glance up and down her body as she stands and frowns.

“You lost weight.”

It isn’t a question so she doesn’t respond; she has lost weight, of course, but it’s not like it won’t pile on soon enough.

“Saul ready for us?”

Quinn continues to look at her, brow slightly furrowed as though he’s trying to piece something together, and she smiles awkwardly.

“Have I got something on my shirt?”

He jolts, embarassed, and steps back.

“Yeah - they’re ready to start early.”

 

It’s unfortunate, given where she works, that coffee seems to be one of the things that turns Carrie’s stomach the most. She makes it through twenty minutes of the meeting before Saul holds the coffee pot under her nose and she has to push her chair back and excuse herself hastily, ignoring Quinn’s eyes on her as she walks quickly down the corridor, holding the bile in as much as she can. It’s become routine now; she has a favourite stall where she swears the tiles are softer on her knees as she retches miserably. It’s not just the physical illness that upsets her but the feeling of humiliation and weakness in front of her colleagues. She’s spent years building up the facade of strength and independence and it feels as though it’s being torn away from her.

 

Afterwards she splashes her face with water and swishes some around her mouth, trying to get rid of the taste. So much for glowing, she thinks; she looks grey and waxy under the fluorescent lights and her eyes are sunken. Her stomach twists again and she takes a deep steadying breath until she’s sure she isn’t going to be sick again.

Panic threatens to take over and she realises her hands are shaking; she’s cold and clammy and suddenly she wants to be upstairs in her warm office with a cup of hot water, but her legs are too unsteady to take her there. She leans her elbows against the sink and touches her forehead to the glass of the mirror, glad when she can’t see her reflection any more. 

It takes another five minutes but she’s able to brace herself to leave, emotions under control and stomach temporarily settled. She swings the door open and nearly has a heart attack when she sees Quinn leaning against the wall, arms folded.

“You know this is the ladies’ bathroom, right?”

He doesn’t respond, continues looking at her, his gaze piercing. The corridor is empty and she squirms under his scrutiny. There's an odd twist to his expression that she hasn't seen before and can't place, a mix of anger and desperation, and before she can open her mouth he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and takes a step towards her, arms folded.

 

“How far along are you?”


	10. Chapter 10

She feels like the pit has fallen out of her stomach. Her breath leaves her; for a moment she toys with the idea of feigning ignorance and then suddenly runs out of energy and motivation and leans back hard against the wall.

“About ten weeks.”

His lips thin.

“How long have you known?”

“About six.”

He slams his hand into the wall hard, making her jump and her heart spike.

“Fuck!”

“I’m sorry” she breathes, wide eyed, “I didn’t know how to tell you...”

“I don’t care about that!” he snaps, turning away and pacing down the corridor, “I care that you put you and your baby in harm’s way by walking into what you knew was a high risk situation. What the fuck were you thinking?”

Her temper flares.

“I was thinking that life doesn’t get put on hold because I got knocked up” she snaps, and he steps up to her rapidly, crowding her into the wall. His eyes are wide and bright and she can’t look away.

“I could have killed you both” he whispers, his voice strained and suddenly she understands his anger; understands it’s aimed almost as much at himself as at her. She remembers that he has killed in the past and knows how easy it is.

“I don’t know what to do” she says brokenly, and covers her face with her hands, trying to move past him to hide in the relative safety of the ladies bathroom. He steps in front of her, blocking her path and catches her hands in his and brings them down to her side, pulling her into his chest. She can’t remember being this close to him apart from the night at hers when she’d pushed him away. He feels strong, safe. She leans her head against his chest and sobs silently as he holds her, arms looped around her shoulders. He strokes through her hair with one hand and she breathes him in, clean and citrussy with a hint of smoke and coffee lingering through. She’s too exhausted to move and just about desperate enough to accept the physical comfort.

When she’s all cried out, exhausted and humiliated, she steps back and he releases her from his embrace, hands braced on her shoulders, eyes skating to the side awkwardly.

“Carrie, I need to ask you...” he says, his voice not entirely steady, and she knows what’s coming.

“There hasn’t been anyone else” she says unevenly, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry”

He shakes his head, and she can’t make out the expression on his face.

“Don’t apologise” he says firmly, “We’ll figure this out.”

She leans forward again, seeking the contact, and he wraps her into his arms. She feels way safer than she has any right to under the circumstances, and half hates and half loves it. 

“I’m really scared” she mumbles against his shirt and he rests his chin on her head.

“So am I” he admits, and she pulls away, quizzical

“Why?”

He smiles, shakes his head.

“I’m not going to guilt trip you, Carrie.”

“When you say that, you kind of are already” she points out drily. “I...I understand where you’re coming from but...I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I don’t think I can be a mother.”

Quinn runs a hand through his hair, expression shuttered. She wonders whether that’s to protect him or her.

“Adoption?”

She hesitates for a beat, too long, and he takes a quick step back, eyes cold, mask fractured. The pain and anger in his face break her heart.

“You cannot be thinking...”

“I’m thinking it’s my body” she retorts sharply, pride stung, and he shakes his head, wide eyed.

“You might as well not have told me if that’s what you were planning” he says in disgust, turning away. “It’s not like I can stop you.”

The words hit her hard but also strike at her stubborn streak and she folds her arms.

“You’re a black-ops agent, Quinn, you think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know what that entails? If I decide to have kids, it’s going to be planned, it’s going to be when I’m not up to my eyeballs on medication and it’s going to be with a guy who doesn’t have to vanish off the face of the earth every six months leaving me alone.”

He is utterly rigid, facing away from her, and she knows she’s crossed the line but also that what she’s said is true and accurate. It was more accurate than she’d wanted actually; giving away too many of her insecurities.

They stand in silence for a long moment and she wants to move forward but is frozen in place before he shakes his head fractionally and walks off, not looking back once, and for the first time she realises just how much she’s valued his friendship as it occurs to her she may have just lost it.

“Quinn” she says weakly, but if he hears her he doesn’t respond, and the clip of his shoes on the tiles fades away into silence as she leans against the wall, one hand cradling her stomach, and lets her breath out slowly.

****


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow, I have been so useless at updating this, I can only apologise! Thank you everyone who's stayed with it :)

It comes as no surprise when Quinn disappears; it’s not personal, she thinks, although on some level it probably is. It’s the job he does and she has no right to be sad. She has no right to miss him. He’s been sent away on a classified trip, Saul tells her, peering over his glasses.

He’s gone a week when she braces herself to make the appointment. On some level she’s been hoping he would get in touch, come back, reassure her. It looks like that’s not going to happen and that’s the deciding factor really. She doesn’t think she can be a mother with all the support in the world, but without him? Not a chance. And if it meant that much to him, if he really wanted it to happen, surely he would have fought for it.

Maggie goes with her and Carrie can feel the disappointment radiating off her. Whether it’s due to the concept of abortion in general or just Carrie’s poor decision making is hard to tell. They sit in the waiting room in silence, Carrie picking at her nails until Maggie covers her hand. Her skin is warm and soft against Carrie’s. 

She closes her eyes against the maelstrom of emotions. She remembers Quinn holding her outside the bathroom and the warmth of his eyes. She thinks about the child he’s already missed out on. She thinks, what if he doesn’t come back from this mission? What if he comes back in a box? What if he’s never found? Doesn’t want to be found?

She tries to think of anyone she would trust more to support her. Tries to think of any man, real or imaginary, who would be a stronger father. A better father.

Tries to think of anyone who deserves the chance to find out more.

“Maggie” she says, eyes wide, hands trembling. “Maggie, I can’t do this.”

Maggie sighs and strokes her hand absentmindedly.

“I know, sweetie” she says reassuringly, and Carrie stands abruptly, hand hovering protectively over her abdomen.

“No..I mean...I can’t do this” she gestures around the waiting room, designed to be soothing and having the polar opposite effect on her, “I can’t be here.”

Her sister blinks, taken aback, and scrutinises her.

“Carrie, are you sure about this? If you don’t do it now...you’re not likely to get a chance again.”

Panic bubbles inside her but she shakes her head resolutely.

“Get me out of here” she says firmly, and Maggie complies.

*****

The next week passes in a blur. Maggie drags her to antenatal appointments, psychiatric appointments and, in one ill advised moment, shopping for maternity clothes. Carrie doesn’t quite melt down in the shop but it’s a close run thing and Maggie guiltily lets her go home to recuperate for the rest of the weekend, promising not to call or text for anything baby related.

Honestly, Carrie is scared. More than Maggie can know. Her heart tells her she’s doing the right thing but her head tells her she isn’t fit to look after herself, let alone a baby. Her heart tells her Quinn will be an amazing father, but her head tells her she’ll probably never see him again to find out.

And before the baby is even born, she’s going to have to tell Saul. And go through childbirth. The latter scares her less. The idea of doing it alone alternately scares and reassures her.

Maggie expects her to be excited; to want to hear the heartbeat, to want to shop for baby-gros and baggy clothes, and all she feels is terror and resistance. It makes her feel like a failure and a disappointment to her sister, and she can’t bear it. Days like this there is nothing she wants more than a large glass of wine, but some unexpected protective feeling within her stops her from taking the step. She wonders with a wry smile what Quinn would think of he could see her now, wonders where he is. She wonders if she loves him sometimes; he’s on her mind all the time but it could be fixation rather than affection - it definitely wouldn’t be the first time she’s fallen into that trap. 

 

Her thoughts are interrupted and she freezes when she turns the corner into her street and sees a car she doesn’t recognise parked outside her house. She’s CIA, of course she knows all the cars her neighbours drive, down to their registration plate and the tread on their tyres. This isn’t one of them.

Crawling up to the kerb she fishes around in her glovebox for a gun, cursing when she can’t find it. Must have left it at work, she thinks in annoyance, and waits in the car to see what her visitor will do.

When a familiar lanky figure unfolds from the drivers seat and walks towards her she lets out a choked sob somewhere between shock and relief, and throws herself out of the car.

“Peter” she says, voice breaking, and he doesn’t break stride, walking purposefully towards her. When he reaches her he grasps her face in his hands, positions her, and kisses her, soft and slow and patient, his mouth warm against hers. It takes her a moment to respond, and when she does the tears come again and she has to pull away.

“Woah, woah” he says, looking dismayed, “That’s not usually the reaction I get...”

She hiccups another sob with half a laugh in the middle and shifts awkwardly, feeling suddenly nervous.

“Let’s go in” she says, “The neighbours probably don’t need to see this.”

As if on cue, a curtain twitches and he wraps an arm protectively around her shoulders, leading her inside. He’s carrying a bag, she realises, that smells like Indian. She hasn’t eaten all day and it smells wonderful. Her stomach gurgles as she unlocks the door and lets them in.

“I figured it was safe to bring food now” he says, and his voice is even. He thinks I had the abortion, she realises, and wants to laugh hysterically. “I wanted to talk, properly, rather than....what happened last time.”

She nods numbly, sinking down into a chair and letting him look for plates and cutlery. He offers her a bottle of beer and for a moment she almost accepts it before shaking her head. 

“I shouldn’t have said what I did” she says softly, “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head and digs out a pakora from the paper bag, picking at the pastry with nimble fingers, gaze fixed on the table.

“We both know it’s true. But I should have told you something rather than just walking off. I didn’t know what to say, and I freaked out. And then I got called out, and it was the shittiest timing. I didn’t want to leave it like that.”

She doesn’t speak; he’s not done, she can tell, but he’s thinking carefully about his next words.

“I understand how you feel, and I agree that it’s your body and your decision. And I think you understand why it was a difficult topic for me. And I am still your...your friend, if that’s what you want. I just need you to know that if things had been different, what I should have said is that I wouldn’t bail. I would have done anything for you and the baby; I would have walked away from my job. I need you to know that. I...I don’t want to think that you see me as that kind of guy.”

She’s aware she’s crying; she’s pregnant, it’s allowed. Her face is sticky from the tears and her eyes feel swollen. She’s never felt more like she’s done the right thing. It’s an odd mix of relief and horror.

“Please don’t cry” he says, sounding a little like a man out of his depth, and she tries to control her sobs for long enough to talk.

“I couldn’t do it” she says, leaning across the table towards him, and unlike her sister he interprets her correctly, eyes widening as he takes it in.

“You didn’t...?”

She shakes her head, tears still falling, and he comes around the table to kneel at her side. His eyes are drawn to the curve of her belly almost against his will and he touches her arm, suddenly awkward, letting out a shaky breath.

“What changed?” he asks, and she shakes her head.

“I’ll tell you some other time.”

He doesn’t press it; she leans into his touch and he squeezes gently, as though he thinks she might break. She should have told him differently, she thinks - maybe he’s horrified now. Maybe he’d come to terms with her initial decision. Maybe now he’ll run, now it’s real.

He tears her out of her thoughts with a nudge to her arm and a knowing look.

“So can you even eat curry?” he asks with a smile and her stomach rumbles again.

“That would be a yes” she says with a watery grin, and he pushes himself to his feet, taking his seat at the other end of the table. All the books tell her to stay away from spicy food but she’s hungry and it smells good, and if she gets heartburn she gets heartburn. She’s been shot, worse things happen. The food is warming and delicious and she realises with a spike of guilt that she really should be taking better care of her body than one meal a day.

They eat in relative silence, lost in their own thoughts, until all the containers are scraped clean and Carrie is ready to fall asleep from the carbohydrate overload. Quinn opens another beer and his shoulders visibly relax in fractions; whether the stress is from his work or the more recent news makes Carrie feel anxious to contemplate.

Afterwards they curl up on her sofa. Her ankles have started to ache and when she begins to roll them Quinn pulls her feet onto his lap and massages the balls of them with his thumbs. It’s oddly intimate, given their history, but feels good enough that she lets her head tip back and sighs tiredly.

“Can I ask you something?”

He looks at her inscrutably and nods finally.

“What happened with your son?”

He smiles.

“You’ve got an awful poker face” he says, and she realises that was why he’d hesitated before answering.

“You don’t have to tell me” she says awkwardly. “I was just curious. It doesn’t matter.”

 

He stares at the wall for a moment, hands still against her feet; he swallows and she can see his adam’s apple move.

“It was a long term relationship but it wasn’t planned. It happened when I was starting out under Dar Adal, and he’d taken me under his wing. As a young operative...you know that means something big. I didn’t want to walk away from it, and I convinced Julia that it would be fine. That I’d be really careful.”

He pauses, swallows his beer.

“I got posted out to Moscow two weeks before she was due. I promised her I’d come back. I had it all planned out, because I was an idiot and didn’t realise there was no way Dar was letting me back until the mission was finished. I wasn’t careful enough and I took a bullet to the leg, wound up in hospital for three weeks trying not to bleed to death. When I finally got back, the baby was born and she couldn’t have anything to do with me. It was too painful for her, and she couldn’t stand to bring up a baby in such an unstable family.”

His mouth twists and he finally turns to meet her gaze, his eyes black.

“She married someone else a year later. My son calls him ‘dad’ now. I send money even though they don’t really need it. I can’t be there, I can’t see him, because it would create too much confusion and upset.”

“I’m sorry” she breathes, not sure whether she’s apologising for making him bring up the painful memories or expressing sympathy. By the look on his face, neither is he.

“It was a long time ago now” he says, mouth a thin straight line, “He will never know his dad isn’t his father.”

“You have pretty shitty luck” she says, her tone half dry and half regretful, “I wouldn’t be anyone’s choice to have a kid with.”

He looks at her sharply.

“Don’t say that.”

She sighs, unfazed by his tone, and gets up.

“Want another beer?”

He pauses, eyes narrowed, trying to decide if he wants to fight about this or just let it slide.

“Sure, thanks.”

She emerges from the kitchen with another bottle and sits back down again. Silence stretches between them.

“So what happens now?”

He leans back and scrubs at his face with his hands.

“What do you want to happen? I’m not going to force myself into your life.”

Her emotions seesaw again and she has to close her eyes against the exhaustion that threatens to overwhelm her.

“I’d like you to be there for appointments. And...I guess, we build a friendship.” 

She pauses, appraises him and seems to reconsider.

“More of a friendship.”

He nods, expression even.

“I can do that” he agrees. “I’d like it.”

She smiles at him, indulgently as though she doesn’t really believe what he’s saying, and he wonders how long it’ll take for them to have a blazing row over something like that. Her passively aggressive self loathing grates at him and he’s torn between wanting to build her confidence and wanting to physically shake her for being so pig headed.

As he ruminates Carrie’s eyes droop closed and her breathing evens out and finally he allows himself to look at her properly. She’s filled out now the morning sickness has stopped, but she looks exhausted and pale, lines of tension around her mouth and eyes even in sleep. Even with that though, she’s so beautiful, he thinks. Has thought so since the moment he met her. He’s seen her fiery and loud, breaking through barriers, bossing around entire teams of staff, but this Carrie, curled up in a ball and looking oddly vulnerable, this is the Carrie he could see himself falling in love with. This is the Carrie, he realises with a twist in his gut that he can’t place, who is going to give birth to his child in 7 months time.


	12. Chapter 12

She shifts in her sleep and makes a quiet noise, and he wonders whether she looked like this on that night, the night where this all started. All soft edges and curves and...well, thinking like that is what got them into this mess, he thinks. God, but he wants to touch her.

He could, he thinks, just reach out. Tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, stroke his thumb over her cheekbone, the corner of her lip. Maybe he already has, and he’s angry with himself for not remembering that night, maybe the only one he’ll have with her. 

Carrie stirs again, and opens an eye, meeting his gaze. She clearly reads something in it because she averts her eyes and a flush rises on her cheek. They sit in silence for a long moment until she uncurls herself and sits up. Quinn stays frozen, unsure whether she’s going to slap him or leave; as it is she does neither, twisting her body on the sofa and leaning forward slowly, bracing her hands on his thighs in an oddly possessive gesture. He forgets how to breathe for a long moment and his eyes flicker shut, heart thumping.

The pressure on his lips is so light he only feels it because his senses are so heightened, a gentle press of skin to skin and her hand grazing through his cropped hair. He can smell her shampoo, taste the tang of lemonade on her lips, and suddenly it’s like an electric shock has passed through him, pulling him out of inertia. His eyes flick open and he grasps at her arms as though she might vanish at any given moment; she pulls back to look at him, pupils blown wide, and he’s absolutely gone, crushing his mouth to hers and tangling his hands into the back of her hair, pulling her into his lap. Her tongue slides against his, slow and sweet and utterly delicious, and he has to fight with himself to breathe through the sensation.  
She pulls back a fraction of an inch and rests her forehead against his, breathing out shakily.

“Is this a massive mistake?” she asks, and he can’t help the laugh that escapes him. What part of anything that’s happened between them isn’t a massive mistake?

“If you have to ask then maybe it is” he says, and could kick himself for that stupid moment of honesty. She recoils as though he’s struck her and covers up her hurt with a self deprecating smile.

“Sorry. Just...hormones. I’m all over the place.”

Hormones. Of course. He tries not to feel the spike of disappointment.

“I saw you watching me and thought...”

He lets his eyes fall closed. Too much fucking baggage between them. He has two very distinct choices in front of him and no time to weigh them up.

“I was” he admits, “You’re fucking beautiful. I can’t not look at you.”

She blinks, momentarily stumped.

“But...”

“But I also think either of us getting into anything at the moment is a really stupid idea.”

She huffs out a breath and sinks back, surprisingly calm.

“You’re right” she agrees, and turns to face him, a genuine smile on her face. 

That went well, he thinks.

“I’m going to bed” she announces, and with all the casualness in the world undoes the top button of her shirt, her eyes fixed on him. His mouth goes dry as he takes in the curve of her bra, the hint of white skin revealed, and as she smiles he knows that she knows she’s got him, “it’s not like stupid ideas have ever stopped us in the past”.

And with a swing of her hips she’s up the stairs, the invitation explicit. He tips his head back against the sofa, scrubs at his eyes and tries to think clearly, but all he can see is her in his mind’s eye, the fantasies he’s kept locked away coming to the fore; images of Carrie arched back, sweat slick and moaning, coming apart at the seams, coming apart for him.

 

“Fuck.”

 

She’s naked when he gets upstairs, just in case she’d been too subtle, and he takes a moment to steady himself and drink her in. She’s fucking gorgeous, so pale and soft and smooth against the sheets. He can’t help but look at her belly, notice the soft curve, too soft for anyone to notice if they didn’t know. She looks at him, unafraid to meet his eye now, and he’s drawn towards her almost independently of his own will, moving towards the bed. Her eyes track him, flicker to the hard line of his arousal through his jeans.

“You’re wearing too much” she comments, and he obligingly shucks his shirt, the alpha male in him enjoying her heated gaze on his torso. She sits up to trail a finger down his chest, and then hooks it into the waistband of his jeans to pull him closer. He moves without resistance, tangling his hand in her hair and unable to stop a moan as she closes her mouth around the bullet scar, running her tongue over the ridge of skin. 

“Carrie” he breathes reverently, and pushes her down gently by the shoulders, bracing himself above her, torn between the desire to be closer and the worry of crushing her with his weight. She leans up, slants her mouth against his, the kiss slow but heated as she pulls him down to her and twists to the side, tangling their legs together. Arousal burns hot and heavy in the pit of his stomach but he’s in no rush for this; Carrie is unpredictable enough that he doesn’t know if or when it’ll ever happen again, so he’s going to savour the moment, even if she does get impatient.

Surprisingly for both of them, she doesn’t; she leans back and allows, enjoys his touches and exploration of her body. When he slides a finger in she swears softly, tensing around him and he pauses for a moment.

“Sorry” she breathes, “It’s been....a while”.

It’s been a few months, he assumes, and the thought sobers him suddenly.

“Carrie, are you sure about this?”

She tenses underneath him, hurt written across her face.

“Aren’t you?”

He huffs out a sigh and presses his lips to hers, chaste this time.

“I’m very fucking sure, Carrie. The problem is if we go much further I don’t trust myself to be able to stop, you understand? You’re ruining my self control.”

She relaxes again.

“Yes” she says, against his lips, “Yes I’m sure”.

He slides down her body, pressing an open mouthed kiss to her right hipbone and then the inside of her thigh before nipping sharply on the sensitive skin there. She bucks and swears, breath ragged, but allows him to hold her down with a hand on her hip, stroking circles into the skin.

“Shhh” he breathes, and slides a finger into her again, running his tongue over her clit. She’s hot and wet and he knows without looking at her that her head will be thrown back, that she’ll be biting her lip, teeth worrying the skin to redness. 

By the time he’s got to three fingers Carrie has given up on subtlety and is writhing and whimpering under him, body coiled tight like a spring. 

“Please” she breathes, so quietly he almost pretends not to hear her, “Peter, please”

“Please what?” he asks, crooking his finger inside her and unthinkingly pressing his lips to her belly as he moves upwards. She doesn’t notice, or if she does then she decides it’s the wrong time to mention such an intimate gesture.

“I really need you”

He’s half tempted to tease her, ask what she needs, get her to beg more, but he just wants this too badly to put it off any more, needs to sink into her heat, needs to be closer to her, watch her fall apart. 

It feels so right and natural when it happens; she’s hot and tight enough to make him lose his breath and have to still for a moment to avoid embarassing himself. Carrie doesn’t help matters by arching against him and clenching fractionally and he grits his teeth.

“Jesus...fuck...you feel amazing” he breathes, and catches her in a bruising kiss. They start out in slow and deep strokes until he can’t hold his restraint any more and flips her over so she can take control, and take control is exactly what she does, bracing her hands by his shoulders and twisting her hips in a way that should probably be illegal in several states. She bends to kiss him and grinds down hard and he thinks he deserves shooting for forgetting the first time that this had happened.

Their rhythm stutters into a clash of teeth and tongues and hipbones, curses muffled against sweat slick skin. Her hands clench convulsively at his shoulders as orgasm takes her, tightening around him, and he groans into her shoulder at the feeling, allowing the tension to build at the base of his spine; one, two thrusts and he’s spilling inside her, swallowing her name on his lips.

She collapses against him; surprising, he’d have had her pegged as the less affectionate type, but as their heart rates settle she remains tucked against his chest, light enough that he barely feels her weight, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, fingertips pressing into his neck as though keeping him fixed there. He brings up a hand to card through her hair and she sighs quietly, eyes half shut.

“That was...”

There’s no good way of finishing that sentence, Quinn thinks, and considers kissing her into submission, but trying to pre-empt Carrie is no easier than stopping the tide turning.

“Amazing.”

Ok, he thinks, that’s a good way of finishing that sentence.

“Yeah it was” he says, not even trying not to sound smug, and presses his lips to the top of her head. 

“We should do it again”

He blinks

“Right now?”

She slides off him, all slender limbs and tousled hair, and curls into his side, face hidden.

“I...um...”

The rest of her sentence is lost to a mumble into his shoulder and he manoeuvres her over, stroking his thumb over her cheek.

“Say that again?”

She flushes and shakes her head, trying to curl into herself, suddenly incredibly insecure.

“Carrie, come on...”

“I meant...like...lots of times. Not all at the same time. Over a period of time. If you wanted to. But you don’t, I know, it’s cool...I...”

He cuts her off with a kiss, because it seems like the easiest way to shut her up, and she relaxes fractionally, shifting to press the length of her body against his.

“I don’t want you to feel trapped into this” she admits, and suddenly her erratic behaviour makes more sense.

“You’re not trapping me into anything” he tells her, as honestly as he can, because actually he doesn’t know what would have happened without the baby, and hasn’t spent the time going through all the ‘what if’s in his head, “And I promise I’m not soft enough to be trapped by it.”

Carrie grins at that, eyes slightly wild but calmer than he’s seen her for a while. He thinks that she wouldn’t be doing this if she didn’t like him on some level and it’s a thought that makes him feel slightly strange inside. He pulls her in close, indulging himself, and she lets herself curl into his side, arm draped over his chest as sleep claims her.


	13. Chapter 13

They slip into a comfortable sort of routine after that. Quinn stays at Carrie’s place a few times a week and the rest of the time they spend apart, companionable at work but happy to have their own space. With Carrie’s hormones still all over the place sex is a variable option; there are days where she appears at Quinn’s front door pupils blown wide with desire and fucks him senseless on the floor of his apartment, and nights where she can’t stand to be seen or touched, slapping his hand away when he goes to touch her face.

Quinn is largely sanguine; regular relationships and dependable sex are not things associated with his career, and he takes what he can get. He’d never admit it but he likes looking out for Carrie, likes the feeling that he can be involved in a way he wasn’t last time. He likes that he can do late night runs to the store for whatever weird shit it is she craves, and he likes that she lets him massage her swollen feet and sore lower back as she gets bigger.

He goes to her scans and appointments with her, and it’s the day of a routine scan when everything changes.

She’s been on his mind today because she was tired and pale in the morning and he’s got quickly into the habit of worrying about her, which he knows is dangerous territory. He’d left her dozing in bed while he got the bus to work, and it’s on his mind that she might be sick, might have overslept and missed her meeting with Saul. He considers texting her and then thinks that might be a bit of an overreaction, and even if she does miss the meeting Saul is unlikely to care.

There’s no reason he should be worrying, he thinks, not right now, and he settles down at his desk, trying to focus on the reports he’s reading. He manages about five minutes of work before deciding to text her, asking about the time of their appointment. He’s getting a really weird kick out of doing these things with her - it makes him think in darker moments that they’re both using each other to pretend to be normal, playing happy families, but most of the time he just feels like he hasn’t fucked up as badly as other times in his life.

He turns the phone over in his hand, waiting for a response, mind elsewhere, and barely even registers Saul appearing in the doorway.

“You ok?”

He lays the phone down on his desk, face up, and smiles.

“Good thanks. You?”

Saul regards him from underneath bushy eyebrows.

“It’s not like you to be this upbeat.”

Quinn shrugs, spreads his hands disarmingly.

“Just that Wednesday feeling” he says, and Saul makes a slightly disbelieving noise under his breath but lets it slide.

“Have you heard from Carrie today? She was meant to be in that meeting this morning.”

A twinge of worry crawls into his stomach and tightens around his gut.

“I’ve not heard from her. Want me to call her?”

Saul shakes his head

“I tried a few times but she isn’t picking up. I hope this isn’t...”

He pauses, considers what to say next and then stops, shaking his head again.

“Never mind. If she turns up here, send her over will you?”

Quinn nods, and then as soon as Saul leaves picks up his phone and dials Carrie.

“Pick up” he breathes, heart thumping with uncomfortable adrenaline, “pick up the fucking phone Carrie.”

He’s just about to hang up after his third call goes to voicemail when there’s a click and a male voice answers, hesitantly.

“Who is this?”

He blinks, almost feels his blood run cold as he replies that he’s her partner, because now is not the time to be quibbling about their relationship. The man on the end of the phone introduces himself as a paramedic, and just like that the world starts falling around Quinn’s ears.

He takes in words as though listening through water, a rushing in his ears as the paramedic talks about a speeding driver, about a collision, about blood loss and urgent transfer to hospital. He swallows reflexively, wondering if he’s going to be sick, and asks where the hospital is and where to report to in clipped and professional words as his sweat slick fingers slip on the pen he’s writing notes with.

“Is she going to be ok?”

The pause on the end of the line is telling and he closes his eyes, panic overwhelming him,

“It’s too soon to tell, sir. I would just get to the hospital as soon as you can so we can discuss the options we have.”

 

It doesn’t occur to him to tell anyone where he’s going. He grabs his keys and wallet and leaves with a single minded determination that only Carrie can provoke, his gut clenching and twisting with anxiety. He can’t even imagine what he would do if he lost her now; now that everything feels so normal. The irony of being hit by a car when she’s deliberately avoided active service at work kills him. Life is so fucking unfair.

He arrives in a daze at the hospital, adrenaline giving way to a crippling emotional exhaustion, and every step towards the ward he’s directed too feels more of an effort than the one before. 

Nothing can really prepare him for what she looks like when he gets there. She’s grey, literally grey, and somewhere between sleep and unconsciousness. The left side of her face is purpling with bruises and they’ve stitched what looks like it would have been a serious cut on her hairline; a mix of blood and iodine stains her hair and cheek.

He hears footsteps and composes his face, taking a deep breath to face the doctor, proferring his hand.

“Peter Quinn” he introduces himself, “I’m Carrie’s partner.”

They shake hands and he’s ushered into a chair, and suddenly he knows exactly what’s coming.

“Ms Matheson is going to be fine” says the doctor, a tired looking man with greying hair around his temples and a few days worth of stubble, failing to meet Quinn’s eyes, “She broke several ribs but there doesn’t seem to be any internal damage. We’ve had to stitch up a lot of scrapes where she hit the kerb and she needed a transfusion when she came in, we were initially concerned she was experiencing an internal bleed.”

He pauses for a moment, as if to allow Quinn to interject, as if there’s anything Quinn can say. As if he doesn’t want to have to deliver this news and he’s hoping Quinn will change the subject or do anything to take him away from the situation.

When it becomes apparent that Quinn can’t and won’t say anything he sighs heavily.

“Unfortunately the impact of the collision and the trauma it caused to her abdomen has torn the placenta, which means the foetus won’t get the oxygen and nutrients it needs, in basic terms. So we had no choice but to operate immediately and remove the placenta to prevent the risk of internal bleeding and infection to Ms Matheson.”

Quinn’s throat feels like it has closed up, his tongue too thick and heavy to get around the words.

“And the baby?”

The doctor - Quinn can’t even remember his name - takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes tiredly

“We did everything we could but there’s a poor prognosis this early in the pregnancy and there was no foetal heartbeat at any point during the procedure. It’s likely that the blunt trauma so close to the abdomen caused an immediate...”

Quinn holds his hand up to stop the doctor, and calmly rises from his seat, walks to the bin and vomits the contents of his stomach, guts clenching painfully. He takes a few cleansing breathes before walking back, meeting the doctor’s sympathetic gaze.

“I’m very sorry, Mr Quinn” he says, and there’s genuine sadness in his voice. “We do offer a bereavement service if you feel that would be helpful to you and Ms Matheson.”

“I...I don’t know” he says blankly, staring at the wall. “When will she wake up?”

“It’s too soon to tell. At the moment she’s medicated from the operation so that will probably last a few hours. After that, it could be any time, depending on her recovery.”

He takes a deep breath, tries to clear his thoughts.

“I need to pick up her clothes” he says, wanting to laugh at the banality of it, “If I go now, she won’t wake til I come back?”

“Extremely unlikely, but we can’t guarantee anything. Does she have any other family who should be here?”

Shit, he thinks. Her family, Saul. He needs to tell them. Tell them something. He can’t face this.

“She...she has family. But I don’t have their numbers.”

The doctor slides him a sideways look, clearly wondering how he has got this far in a relationship without knowing his partners family details. But then, Quinn thinks, he was never designed for this. He and Carrie don’t do relationships; their job doesn’t allow it. Their lives don’t allow it. 

He suddenly feels panicked and airless, and has to steady himself against the wall.

“I’m gonna go and pick up some clothes” he says, unable to meet the doctor’s eye. “I’ll be back before she wakes.”

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a horrible person. I'm so sorry.


	14. Chapter 14

He sits in the car and lights a cigarette, the inhalation stabilising his breathing. He feels as though someone has pulled him apart and put him back together in the wrong order, like nothing quite fits as it should. It takes him four cigarettes and ten minutes before he can pull away, and he drives slowly to her house, aware that his mind is not on the road. On autopilot he opens her door with his key and stands in the doorway for several minutes. Last time he came in he’d been bringing takeaway and some crappy dvd and she’d fallen asleep against his shoulder, one hand cradling her bump protectively. They’d almost been a family. It had been so comfortable.

 

He sinks down into the chair and stares at the sofa as though he can wind back time with sheer force of will, unblinking until his eyes sting with dryness. A second child lost, and this time not even through his choice. Some stupid fucking driver. Everything that had felt so stable is crashing around his ears. 

 

Rage overtakes him suddenly and he surges to his feet, fists clenched. Why the fuck couldn’t she have been more careful? Why hadn’t he stayed with her? Why hadn’t she just looked before she crossed the road? Why couldn't he have been there to knock her out of the way? He sits at the kitchen table, stares at the coffee machine as though it contains the answers. Fury simmers in his veins and he just wants to break something. He smacks his hand hard against the table and the sting helps him catch his breath and compose himself.

 

Suddenly exhausted, he shuffles up the stairs and stares at her bedroom. Her bed (their bed?) is unmade; the room smells of her perfume. In another world she could come wandering out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, swearing as she looks for her watch.

“Fuck” he says out loud, resting his head against the doorframe. “Fuck.”

He has to fill a bag for her, he thinks. He doesn’t know what she needs. How is clean underwear going to make any of this better? How is anything going to make it better? How is he going to help her?

He sits on the bed and covers his face with his hands, and then with final resolution gets up, drops his set of keys on the table, and leaves.

 

********

When Carrie wakes, the first thing she feels is an odd sensation of somehow missing something. Then the pain starts to sink in, bone deep, and weariness, and she realises that something is wrong. She’s in hospital, though that part isn’t particularly unusual for her, and she can’t remember what put her there which again is realistic. 

Her thoughts move to Quinn and work and her family, in that order, and whether they know she’s here. She tries to sit up and pain shoots though her, leaving her light headed and nauseous.

“Try not to move too much” says someone from the doorway, a disembodied voice that moves closer. “You’ve had a nasty accident.”

She sits back slowly, wincing all the way until she feels the welcome buzz of morphine as her pump is turned up.

“What happened?”

“You were hit by a car.”

Her hands fly to her stomach automatically, heart rate increasing.

“No...”

The doctor puts a hand on her arm sympathetically and Carrie shakes it off aggressively, not caring about the pain of the cannula pulling against her skin.

“Carrie, please calm down.”

“I won’t calm down until you tell me my fucking baby is healthy” she says, every muscle in her body tensed. “Tell me.”

A nurse approaches from the other side and she twists away.

“Carrie, we’re going to give you a shot of something to calm you down a little, okay?”

With effort she takes a deep breath and forces herself to relax.

“No, please don’t. I’m calm. Please, just tell me what’s going on.”

The doctor sits down and takes a breath.

“Carrie, I’m really sorry, but there was nothing we could do. You took the impact of the collision straight to your body and there was no foetal heartbeat when you came in. We were able to stabilise you but your baby was deceased when we got her out.”

“Her,” is all Carrie can get out, and it’s half croak and half sob, “It was a girl?”

 

The doctor swallows hard and nods.

“I’m so sorry” he says, and Carrie doesn’t feel a thing except numbness. Bone deep numbness.   
 It was a girl, she thinks. Little baby Quinn.

“Does Peter know?” she asks, although she knows the answer before the doctor nods.

“And he’s taken off, right?”

The nurse chews her lip; exchanges glances with the doctor.

“He said he was going to go get some overnight things for you and come back.”

Carrie laughs mirthlessly and pushes her hair back.

“How long ago was that?”

Awkward silence.

“About twelve hours ago.”

Even through the numbness the words hit her like a physical blow and she feels tears spring to her eyes.

“Fucker” she murmurs, and forces herself to toughen up. She was an idiot for letting him in, she thinks. “I’m fine. I just want to sleep.”

The doctor and nurse exchange another glance but leave after a check of her monitors with a promise they’ll be back when she wakes up.

Lying there in the dark hospital room she cradles her stomach with both hands and feels utterly alone.

*****

Quinn runs. He runs metaphorically, drinking himself into a stupor in a flat he rented under a false name with forged documents, and then he runs physically, taking an assignment to the other side of the country. He shoots for fun, shoots like he’s been trained to, and then goes back to his anonymous motel and drinks himself into a stupor. 

Then he runs again.

It doesn’t matter though; he could run to the other side of the world and still be haunted by the thought of what he’s done. 

He’s been accused of a lot of things in his life but being a coward isn’t one of them.

The thing is, though, he put himself out there and let Carrie get close, let himself get close to her, and he knows when he sees her it will be over, and for the first time he can remember he’s afraid of being hurt. He’s afraid of losing more than he already has.

It takes him a few weeks to think through the haze that maybe she’s hurting too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry…I just can't stop punishing them.


	15. Chapter 15

Carrie, unsurprisingly, relapses. She declines medical treatment and psychological input and locks herself in her house. She doesn’t bother checking her phone; she knows he won’t call. In her mind it is utterly clear that she has fucked up and that Quinn has done what any man in his situation would and gotten clear of the blast site.

Maggie calls and Carrie tells her she’s fine. She manages to maintain the facade for one minute and twenty-eight seconds, the duration of the call, before collapsing back on her bed and staring blankly at the ceiling.

She hasn’t showered in days, hasn’t eaten. The house is littered with half-drunk mugs of coffee because when she sleeps she wakes up breathless and clammy with panic, and mainlining caffeine holds the sleep at bay for a while. Alcohol helps; she’s fairly sure she hasn’t been sober since it happened. The cocktail of mood stabilisers and alcohol almost helps to drown out the pervading pain she feels.

Her bed feels like the only safe place in the world and she makes herself a nest of blankets and lies there, staring blankly at the ceiling. She thinks that she has no right to feel so sad for the loss of a child she didn’t want and a man who stayed with her from guilt, and she drinks vodka from the bottle and closes her eyes, and when she closes her eyes she feels his lips against her stomach that night, sees the tenderness in his face, and snaps her eyes open in frustration.

She thinks about getting up, and then sighs and sinks back into the pillows, and stares up at the ceiling again.

*****

Quinn eventually comes back home, and refuses steadfastly to consider at what point it became home. He needs to talk to Carrie, to somehow try and make things right, because she didn’t deserve to feel the impact of his meltdown, but there’s a deep dark angry part of him that doesn’t want to see her face for reasons he can’t entirely come to terms with.

It takes a bottle of vodka the night before and a herculean effort to make him enter Langley, and when he braces himself to go and see her he finds her desk cold and empty.

“Where’s Carrie?” He asks, and Saul fixes him with an unnerving gaze.

“She’s not here.”

Quinn’s temper spikes and he turns to face Saul fully, aware of his body language.

“I can see that. Where is she?”

Saul faces up to him, shoulders set.

“It’s not protocol to disclose that kind of information.”

“Well fuck protocol, I need to see her.”

Saul glares at him, eyes black behind his thick glasses, and lowers his voice.

“I know full well that something has happened between you, and she hasn’t come in since you left. Now you can fucking fix this, and fix it quickly.”

Quinn recoils as though he’s been slapped.

“She hasn’t been in at all?”

Worst case scenarios flick through his mind; he quickly discards most of them, thinking that any physical problems wouldn’t have set Saul on edge, and comes to an unpleasant conclusion.

Judging by the look on Saul’s face the same thought has come to his mind, and they face off angrily for a moment before Quinn takes a step back.

“Have you been to see her?”

Saul bristles

“That’s none of your business.”

“Then don’t fucking judge me” Quinn spits and turns on his heel, temper pulsing. 

He walks almost all the way to Carrie’s house, fuelled by his anger, determined not to consider his guilt so much as Saul’s abandonment of his protegee. He doesn’t slow until he reaches her front door, and then his feet grind to a halt and he’s suddenly less sure of himself. The last time he saw her, before the accident, they had been planning to have a child together, virtually living together. Now he’s a fool who’s walked away from a fragile woman at her most vulnerable moment.

He lifts his hand to knock on the door, stops, feels the key in his pocket. Sighs, lifts his hand again, and knocks tentatively. There’s no response, which is no surprise whatsoever. When he tries the key in the lock, it turns, and that is a surprise - he would have expected anger to drive her to change the locks.

Wandering through the house, he makes as much noise as he can; he doesn’t want to startle her and he doesn’t want her to shoot him mistaking him for an intruder. As he looks in the kitchen his sense of unease grows - nothing has been touched for weeks apart from the coffee machine and the fridge, which is empty apart from a few half empty bottles of vodka. 

He calls her name and there’s no reply. His heart clenches. If she’s not okay, he will never forgive himself.

“Carrie?”

He lets the stairs creak; it feels odd for someone used to sneaking around, deliberately undetected, to be so obvious.

There’s a shaft of daylight coming through the doorway of her bedroom and he knocks tentatively before entering. She’s not in her bed, but the sheets are rumpled and warm, which takes an immediate weight off his mind; he doesn’t know her full history but the idea of her attempting suicide certainly doesn’t seem out of the question.

A faint sound of water, a splash as though something has been dropped into the tub, from the bathroom catches his attention and he steps through, throat dry.

She’s lying in the bath, utterly lax, skin white underneath the reflection of the lights.

“Carrie” he breathes, and sees her shoulders tense, though she gives no other sign of having registered his presence. Knowing it’s a bad idea, he moves forward into the bathroom anyway, kneeling at the side of the bath. There’s no warmth coming from the water and Carrie’s lips are tinged with blue and her eyes are flat, as though she’s passed beyond shivering, which spurs him into action.

Dipping his hand into the water it comes out cool and he grabs a towel from the rail, pulls the plug out of the bath and hefts Carrie into his arms, soaking himself in the process. She’s frozen and barely responsive - he knows this because he’s pretty sure he’d have taken a sharp knee to the groin if she had any idea he was here or touching her.

He sits her down on the floor, cranks the radiator up and rubs at her shoulders roughly with the towel, oddly awkward about seeing her naked. Of course she wasn’t going to have dealt with this he thinks, and feels like the biggest douche in the world.

“Carrie” he shakes her firmly and her head lolls, “Carrie, can you hear me?”

Her lips move faintly and he leans in

“I didn’t hear what you said...”

“Go fuck yourself, asshole” she whispers, and he’s torn between laughing and crying.

“You need looking after” he says firmly, and while she grumbles under her breath she doesn’t have the energy to fight him as he wraps her in all the blankets and towels he can find.

“The fuck were you trying to do anyway?” he mutters, more to himself than her, “freeze to death?”

Her head lolls away from him and a cold feeling squeezes at his gut.

“Carrie” he says sharply, catching her chin and turning her towards him, not too gently. Her eyes flutter. “Tell me this wasn’t you doing something fucking stupid.”

She doesn’t respond and he swears violently, standing up. The bathroom looks clear; no pill bottles, nothing out of the ordinary. Kitchen is the same. When he goes back upstairs the bath has run dry and there’s a fucking great razor blade sat in the bottom of the tub and his temper explodes.

“The actual fuck, Carrie?”

He flings the blade at the wall and it lodges in plaster; he can’t bring himself to care. She still doesn’t respond but he’s too full of rage to think clearly, to focus on any one thing.

He crouches down in front of her and slaps her hard around the face; the impact sends her to the side and he freezes, anger seeping out of him and leaving a bitter hollow in its wake.

“Carrie...”

She finally focusses on him and her eyes fill with tears, lip trembling.

“You left me” she accuses him, “I trusted you and you left me.” She touches her face and winces, “You hit me!”

“Fuck’s sake Carrie, I’ve shot you in the past” he says, because he feels like shit and it might distract her, “and by the looks of this shit you were going to leave me. You were going to leave all of us.”

She turns away from him, mouth twisting.

“You lost your right to care about what I do” she says coldly, and he shakes his head.

“I fucked up, I know...and I want to explain it...”

“I’m done talking to you” she says flatly, “I don’t want to hear your excuses or your explanations. I was an idiot for thinking you cared about anything beyond doing the right thing for the baby and now I know better.”

He stares at her for a long moment, wondering how she can possibly think that, wondering how he can get how he feels across to her.

Carrie pulls her bundle of blankets around her, suddenly exhausted, and turns away from him.

“Just go” she pleads, “Just leave me alone.”

He sighs and scrubs his hands through his hair.

“Carrie, if I’d not just found you half frozen in a cold bath with a razor the size of my forearm I might consider doing that, but there’s no fucking chance. So either I stay here and keep an eye on you or I call your sister to see what she has to say.”

 

She glowers at him, but it lacks venom somehow.

“I’m not going to kill myself, ok?”

“Well, great” he deadpans, “That’s absolutely the kind of thing I’m going to take your word on.”

She slumps back, puts her head in her hands

“You don’t get to just come back here like nothing happened” she says, hurt colouring her voice into something unrecognisable. “You make out like you had the moral highground on Brody but at least he never pretended to feel something he didn’t.”

Quinn stills.

“Is that what you think?” he asks, gut clenching. “Do you think I left because I don’t feel anything?”

“Yes” she says flatly

“Did it occur to you that I might have left because it was pretty traumatic for me too? I nearly lost both of you that day.”

He keeps his voice even but the tension rings through nonetheless. She doesn’t say anything, staring blankly at the bathroom tiles.

“Carrie, how long have you known me?” he tries, and she shrugs apathetically. “Have you ever known me do something I don’t want to? I’m black ops, I spend my life escaping situations. I don’t fucking come back, do you understand?”

He thinks that will provoke her to anger but it doesn’t; she shakes her head.

“I don’t trust you” she says flatly, sadly, “Please leave me alone.”

His heart breaks a little, looking at her there. In terms of the fuck ups he’s made in his life, this is right up there. Up there with missing the birth and childhood of his first child. Maybe, he thinks, it’s just not meant to be. Men like him aren’t meant to settle down. But fuck, it had felt right with Carrie.

“I can’t” he says, regret bleeding into his tone, “I don’t believe that you’re not going to try and hurt yourself.”

“I’ll go to Maggie’s. I’ll go to hospital. I just want you to go away.”

The words cut him like a knife, cold pain sinking into his chest. He’s genuinely shocked - had expected, after years of seeing her chase after Brody, that she would accept him back. At the back of his mind he’d expected to be slapped, to be shouted at, and that they’d talk it through, he would look after her and they could go back to...whatever it was that they had.

Now, looking at the broken mess he’s left behind, he thinks he’s a fucking idiot for being that naive. He feels like a worm for pushing her so hard into letting him stay that she’s willing to go to hospital. 

“Can I give you a ride somewhere?” he asks, defeated, and she nods.

“I’ll go to the hospital. Maggie...she’s been busy. I haven’t told her.”

Quinn reels but bites his tongue not to say anything. Definitely not the time or the place to point out that eventually Maggie will find out, not least in 3 months when no baby appears.

He waits as she packs a bag, hating how used to it she is now, and holds the car door open for her. The trip to the hospital is spent in silence; her anger seems to have faded into exhaustion and she stares out of the window blankly. He looks at the traffic lights to check she’s okay - her skin is pale and clammy, highlighted by the red of the lights. 

As they pull into the hospital carpark she finally turns to him.

“Why did you come back, tonight?” she asks, no hope in her tone. He doesn’t answer for a moment, parking the car up and hoisting her bag out from the back. He’s not sure what his answer is, but he has to say something.

“I wanted to see you” he says simply, making eye contact. “I wanted to talk to you.”

She absorbs that for a moment, and her head twitches fractionally. He can’t tell whether it’s a nod or just a movement borne of exhaustion, and then she picks up her bag and opens the door. He follows her out and she smiles mirthlessly.

“Don’t trust me to go in?”

He doesn’t - can just see her waiting in the foyer until he drives away and then making her own way home, or worse still, not making her own way home. 

“You look exhausted” he says, thinking it’s a safer answer, “I just want to make sure you get settled in okay.”

He hangs back when she goes to the desk, wanting to give her some space, and goes to get them both some tea. They’re only waiting ten minutes before the psych liaison nurse comes in and calls her name.

“Thanks” she says reluctantly, turning to face him, “For giving me a lift.”

“You’re welcome” he responds, face neutral. “Can I come and visit tomorrow?”

She considers it for a while, and he can’t help his face falling slightly.

“I’ll swing by anyway” he says, “You don’t have to see me.”

“Ok”. She’s swaying on her feet with exhaustion now and he just wants to hold her. He reaches forward, lays a hand on her shoulder, squeezes gently. Leans in and presses a soft kiss to her cheek, gratified when she doesn’t pull away.

“Call if you need anything” he says, and watches her walk through the doors with the nurse, feeling like something’s constricted in his chest. 

He needs to fix this and he has no idea how.

******


	16. Chapter 16

It’s the first hospital admission Carrie has had for depression rather than mania and the combination of that, the ‘underlying triggers’ and the fact she’s been taking her meds means that they can keep her in without sectioning her, which also means she would be free to leave whenever she wants. The strange thing is though, she just wants to stay there. Deep down she knows that the structure and the therapy will help; she won’t have to worry about cooking and cleaning and calling in to work.

She wonders whether Quinn will come and see her. He’d been to visit on one of her psychotic breaks, apparently, though she doesn’t remember it. She wonders if she’s been too harsh on him, reflecting on it; this won’t be the first child he’s lost, albeit in a different way, and she’s been so absorbed in her own grief that she hadn’t really considered that. Maybe, she thinks, that selfish streak of hers is the reason he didn’t come back.

She meets with the psychiatrist in the morning who fills out a forest’s worth of paperwork and talks through why she felt so bad. They talk about switching her meds for a better mood stabilisation, a switch from lithium to quetiapine. No anti-depressants incase they precipitate mania. Support from a bereavement group run locally.

“Is your partner here? We can offer him some support too.”

She considers it for a moment.

“He’s not my partner but I think he’ll visit today. I can discuss it with him.”

“Do you have any family members we should notify?”

Carrie groans.

“Yeah. Yeah, I need to make a call.”

***

 

Maggie is, unsurprisingly, both hurt and angry when Carrie tells her.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you come to me?”

“I’m sorry, Maggie” she says, feeling drained, “My head’s been all over the place, and I didn’t want...I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

There’s a long pause, the sound of Maggie blowing out her breath through her teeth.

“Shit, Carrie, you shouldn’t be apologising. I’m so sorry. Do you want me to come visit?”

Anxiety rises in her at the thought and she has to work to keep her voice even.

“Tomorrow?”

“Sure. I’ll swing by, for a bit. Is there anything I can do for you, hun?”

Carrie massages her temple with one hand.

“Can you call work? Don’t tell them, just...say I’m not going to be in for a while. I’ll get a medical note.”

“Sure I can” Maggie says soothingly, “Oh Carrie. God. Get some rest, okay?”

“Okay” she says weakly, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be in bed. “Thanks Maggie. I love you.”

“Love you too” says Maggie, and Carrie hangs up the phone, not feeling much lighter for her honesty. She goes back to her room, crawls into bed fully dressed and pulls the covers up to her chin.

Sleep takes her, although only fitfully; her dreams are fleeting and disjointed and leave her clammy and anxious when she wakes up. Eventually she just lies awake, staring at the ceiling until there’s a knock.

“Carrie, there’s a man here to see you. Peter Quinn.”

She doesn’t respond but the door opens anyway and the nurse lets him in. He looks ragged, as though he hasn’t slept well. He looks concerned. He’s holding a bag in his hand, worrying the paper between his fingers.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks awkwardly and she tries to make herself respond but can’t really, not through the huge lump in her throat. He shifts his weight in the doorway as though trying to decide whether to move forward into the room or exit backwards. For someone usually so sure of his actions, it’s an odd state to see him in.

“Sit down” she says, finally, exhausted by his nervousness, and he does, taking the chair next to her bed. 

“Brought you some fruit” he says, taking a handful of satsumas out of the bag and then depositing it on the bed. It doesn’t feel like fruit; when she looks inside she sees a packet of cigarettes and a lighter and blinks at him.

“Did you just smuggle contraband in?”

He shrugs, picks at his nails nonchalantly.

“Thought you might want them.”

She slides the goods under her pillows, fingers running over the smooth plastic of the box.

“Thanks.”

They sit in silence for a while, comfortable, before she turns on her side to face him, wrapping the duvet around her as though it can keep her safe.

“I should have asked how you’re doing” she says, chewing her lip, “I’m sorry.”

He swallows; hadn’t been expecting that.

“I’m fine”

The second the words are out of his mouth he regrets them; Carrie’s face twists and he lets some of his exhaustion seep through as he slumps in his chair.

“I’m not fine. Carrie, I’m fucking heartbroken, and I feel like shit for what I’ve done to you. I thought I was a better person than that.”

She absorbs that for a second.

“They’ve offered me bereavement counselling as well as changing my meds” she finally offers. “Would you like to see them as well?”

He wants to say no; say he can deal with this on his own; but he knows he has no more chance of that than Carrie does.

“Yeah” he says, and her eyes flick to him in surprise, “I think that might be helpful.”

“I’m still mad at you” she says, but her tone isn’t as cold as last night and he’ll take that as a win.

“Can’t blame you for that” he says lightly. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

She shakes her head.

“I’m exhausted” she admits, “I can’t sleep.”

He huffs. Knows that she would sleep better wrapped around him; she always does. Now doesn’t seem like the best time to point that out.

“Is there anything I can do?”

She shakes her head again, tears springing to her eyes, and he can’t help but reach out to her, lay a hand on her cheek. For a long moment she doesn’t move, and then so slowly she reaches up and covers his hand with hers, a completely alien moment of intimacy that takes his breath away.

There’s a knock at the door and the nurse pokes her head through.

“Visiting time is up” she says and Quinn reluctantly gets to his feet, fingers trailing over Carrie’s cheek.

“I’ll come back tomorrow” he says, and as he gets to the door adds “I’m not going to leave you again” and slips out before she can argue.

***

He visits every day for the next week, bringing her fruit, cigarettes, magazines, puzzle books, and on one occasion flowers. He goes to the support session which, against all odds, kinda makes him feel better. He feels better about things. 

Carrie spends most of her days in bed. She tips the meals the nurses bring into the bags that Peter brings in every day and throws it away once the corridor is clear, unable to face the idea of food. She lets the black depression completely overtake her, fantasising about killing herself, of hurting herself, and lies in bed until she’s ushered up into the shower once a day. The weight falls off her, leaving her gaunt and pale. She looks into the mirror and is repulsed by herself, but still Quinn comes to visit every day.

Time passes. The meds finally start to kick in, breaking through the haze that’s been surrounding her. She starts to be able to engage with therapy, reluctantly, talking about her feelings of loss, talking about the loneliness she’s felt since her diagnosis, her inability to form and maintain relationships.

“Do you think I have personality disorder?” she asks the therapist one day, wrapped in a grey blanket and huddled on a window seat, looking out at the frosty landscape. It’s nearly November and it’s freezing cold and bleak outside.

Her therapist pauses, looks over her glasses at Carrie.

“What makes you say that?”

Carrie shrugs, pretending it hasn’t been on her mind for years.

“Difficulty forming relationships, alcohol dependence, lack of empathy...they’re all kinda buzz words.”

“Sure they are. But they’re only a part of it. And the very fact you’re worrying about it, the fact that you’re so cut up about these bonds that you feel you’ve lost, between your baby and your ex-partner, that’s proof in itself that actually under all the crap that’s happened to you you’re a normal person with normal emotional responses.”

The words cut through Carrie like a knife and she swallows.

“Really?”

“Really. If I thought you had any underlying personality traits we would be discussing that. As it is you have a neurochemical condition, your bipolar disorder, and you’ve experienced a lot of bad things in your life, and what’s happening at the moment is that you’re starting to look at them with a clear head. That’s totally normal, Carrie.”

She absorbs the words, rolls them around in her head, holds them up to the light.

“I’d never thought about it that way” she murmurs, and then, slightly childishly, “So the reason all my relationships go to shit isn’t just me?”

“No, Carrie. There are always two people, right? Why should it be your fault alone?”

She sits in silence for a moment. It feels like the world has turned upside down; everything she had thought about being a bad person, ruining other people, has been changed. Maybe she’s not all powerful, solely capable of making and breaking things. It’s simultaneously uplifting and bleakly depressing.

“I think I’m done for today” she says, and the therapist nods, looking at her closely.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah,” she forces a smile, “Just a lot to take in, you know?”

“Take it easy today, Carrie” the therapist advises her, “Is Peter coming to visit?”

“Yeah” she says with certainty, and pauses at her response. When did he become a reliable factor in her life again? “I mean, probably.”

The therapist smiles and doesn’t comment on that.

“Why don’t you go for a walk with him?” she asks, “It’s a beautiful day and you’re still here informally. Talk it through with him. Sometimes it’s good to discuss these things with someone who knows you in a different way to me.”

She pulls a face, tries to imagine opening up to him again, imagines the burn of rejection if he doesn’t want to talk about her demons.

“I’ll think about it” she says, and wraps her blanket around her shoulders as though it can protect her from anything but the cold outside.

***


	17. Chapter 17

Quinn turns up at 3pm, bang on time, reliable as ever. Today he’s brought her coffee and her stomach gurgles. She thinks of the warm soothing heat as she swallows it and can’t resist taking a sip, noticing him noticing her enjoyment.

“Thanks” she says, and he shrugs.

“It’s pretty cold out. I thought you might need something to warm up.”

He’d actually thought the best chance of getting some calories into her would be coffee, but there’s no need to tell her that. Her fatigue and weight loss are leaving him with a cold pit of anxiety in his stomach; the suicidal thoughts seem to have faded with the change in medication but fucked if he’s going to let her starve to death.

She nods, takes another sip. The coffee feels great on her empty stomach; the sugar seeps into her bloodstream and she finally feels like she has the energy to move.

She looks at him; he’s looking better now. Less exhausted, but she can see the worry in his face as he watches her drink and feels a stab of guilt. Time to be brave, she thinks, and takes a breath.

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

 

He blinks, surprised; it’s the first proactive suggestion she’s made since she came in. An encouraging sign, he hopes.

“Sure, sounds good.”

They check her out of the ward and take the stairs down. She’s so frail, Quinn can see that she’s getting tired just at the pace they’ve set, and slows slightly for her. He wants desperately to hold her, put an arm around her, any kind of contact, but feels that it will just send her running at the moment so holds off.

There’s a park across the road and they head towards that in wordless agreement, both lost in their own thoughts.

“How’ve you been?” she asks, and he’s stunned again. Not really Carrie’s style to ask. He wonders what she means by it; what’s changed.

“I’m okay” he says, and kind of means it. He’s still seeing the support group once a fortnight; a lot of his raw pain and anger has been talked out now but he finds it useful to be in a room of people who understand and accept what’s happened without offering pity or useless platitudes. “How about you?”

She ignores his question, staring at her feet as they walk.

“I feel like I’ve really fucked your life up” she admits, surprising herself. That hadn’t been the tack she was going to take. “I lumbered you with a baby and a relationship and then you lost both of those things and you’re having to come and visit me here in your spare time.”

He pauses for a moment, processes all of that.

“I hadn’t thought about it that way” he says honestly, buying himself time, “I don’t feel like you lumbered me with anything. Shit, sure I wasn’t anticipating having another kid, but Carrie, you know I was over the moon in the end, right?”

She thinks back to the day he returned and she’d told him she couldn’t go through with the abortion; the sheer joy and relief on his face.

“I know.”

“And that night when you unbuttoned your shirt and invited me to come upstairs...what part of my response to that makes you think you were forcing me into a relationship I didn’t want to be in?”

“I thought...”

“Carrie, you think way too much of me sometimes. I’m not a nice guy, I’ve proved that fairly well this year I think. If I don’t want to be somewhere, I’m not there. I don’t think I have it in me to pretend to be something I’m not.”

They both take in the implications of that. She turns to face him, breath fogging in the freezing air.

“Why are you here?” she asks, and there’s so much fear in her voice he doesn’t even know what the right answer is. He doesn’t know if he can be the support that she’ll need; not just now, but in 5 years, for her next relapse, for the one after that. What if he can’t deal with it and runs off again, leaving her alone?

Maybe she reads some of that in his face; she turns back to the path and starts walking again.

“I wanted to talk to you about my therapy session today” she says thoughtfully, “but I’m not sure now.”

He considers that for a second, unsure how to respond.

“What did you talk about?”

She smiles; he phrased that well.

“We talked about relationships. How maybe it’s not entirely my fault when things get fucked up. That maybe things get fucked up for reasons beside my mental illness.”

That does give him pause for thought; without planning to he stops dead and catches her by the shoulders, swinging her round. She blinks up at him with those massive fucking eyes that have had him drawn in from day one, cheeks red from the cold, and in that moment he’s so full of conflicting emotions he can barely draw breath, let alone speak. Anger and frustration both at her and himself, adoration, no small measure of lust, all war inside him.

“Did you think I left because I couldn’t deal with how you are?” he asks, voice raw, and her eyes fill with tears as she nods. 

“It feels like everyone does” she admits, and it takes every ounce of her bravery to hold his eye contact. 

“Carrie, I left because I couldn’t deal with the situation. I couldn’t deal with the loss. I didn’t think for one fucking minute about your mental state, I was completely selfish. I left because I was a coward. All the way through...everything...your bipolar is part of who you are. I wouldn’t have stayed from the start if I didn’t accept that.”

She swallows hard, eyes sliding away from his face, and he wonders what’s going to happen next; Carrie is nothing if not unpredictable. She takes a deep, shuddering breath in, and then another, and he realises with a jolt that she’s about to completely fall apart. Casting aside his doubts about how welcome his touch would be he steps forward and folds her into his arms, wrapping one around her shoulders and the other hand pushing her head gently into his chest, stroking through her hair. 

She’s wracked with sobs now, heaving against him with big ugly gulps as though all the emotion is trying to get out of her in one torrent, and against his wishes he feels his throat close up and his eyes sting.

“Shh, Carrie, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

It’s bullshit, they both know; both Carrie and Quinn are so far away from okay that it’s barely a speck in the far distance, but somehow it seems to soothe her and she relaxes into his embrace, her shaking dulled to a shiver that’s probably more to do with the cold than her mental state.

After what feels like hours, she disentagles herself from him and fumbles in her pocket for a tissue, blowing her nose. Even gaunt and blotchy as she is, he can still see the beauty in her. Even after everything, there’s still something left of the old Carrie, and that’s the most encouraging thought he’s had all day.

“You must be frozen” he says, indulging himself by stroking an errant strand of hair back off her face, “Let’s go back.”

She nods, teeth chattering, and that constant urge to protect her is fiercely back in his chest. How did he ever leave, he wonders? He shrugs off his hoodie and wraps it around her shoulders, not even caring at the bite of the wind. The way she pulls it close to her and breathes in the scent of his aftershave makes it worthwhile. 

They walk back in silence, Quinn fighting the urge to wrap his arm around her, Carrie lost in her own thoughts. Hearing Quinn’s insecurities has, in an horrible way, made her feel better. Less damaged herself. She feels on more of an even footing with him, oddly.

Walking back up the stairs the lack of food and the exhaustion of the day catch up with her and she feels the blood drain from her face as her ears start ringing. The stairwell spins around her and she catches onto the rail, knees buckling.

Quinn turns just in time to see her drop and swears, stepping back to catch her from sliding down. Her eyes are flickering, still conscious, as he considers what to do; whether to call for help, prop her feet up or just carry her the few steps to her room. He opts for the latter; slides his arm under her knees and the other around her back. She leans into him, though whether it’s conscious or just the way he’s holding her he can’t tell, and he stands up slowly, not wanting to dizzy her with the sudden rush of getting up quickly. She weighs nothing, he thinks with dismay, cradling her small body against him.

When he reaches the top of the stairs and goes to push the door, she catches his arm

“I can walk” she says, and then with an hint of desperation, “they’ll stop me going out again if they know.”

He sighs, releases her gently, keeping hold of her when she sways slightly.

“Will you eat something?”

She considers it, and nods, something sincere in her face that for better or worse he believes.

“Not much” she says firmly, “I don’t have much appetite. But I promise I will.”

There’s a pause; they’re so close to each other right now, he could just step in and kiss her. Really wants to.

“Do you want to...stay a bit? The food isn’t great but...”

He sees it for what it is; a show of trust, an invitation for him to see that she really will eat something, and something odd happens in his chest for a moment.

 

“Sure” he says with a crooked grin, “I’ve had to make my own dinner in the Kurdish outlands, I’m pretty sure nothing can be worse than that.”

As it happens he’s almost wrong. The smell of the chilli they bring for Carrie nearly makes both of them gag; she pushes it to one side and nibbles on a pitta bread. 

“This shit is nasty” he comments succinctly, pulling a face as he tries the stew, “No wonder you’ve not been eating it.”

She smiles wryly at him and tears off another chunk of pitta bread, sipping at her orange juice. He wants to say he’s proud of her but it would be so fucking patronising she’d probably kick him in the balls, so he sits with her and gripes about the hospital food casually until she pushes her plate away, done eating.

“Want me to bring you something better tomorrow?” he asks, and she scrutinises him for a second. Increasingly over the last few weeks something of her old self has been coming back; today he sees it more keenly, although it’s hard to articulate what has changed. She seems sharper somehow, more observant and more a part of what’s going on.

“That would be nice” she says finally, politely. 

He smiles, looks at the clock. Visiting time ended half an hour ago; the nurses seem to like him and don’t enforce it much but he knows he should let her get some rest.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then” he says lightly, unfolding himself from his chair by her bed. She goes to unzip his hoodie and he shakes his head.

“Keep hold of it” he says, “just incase it gets cold again. Besides, it suits you.”

Her cheeks colour fractionally and she rolls her eyes at him.

“Do those lines ever work on girls, Quinn?”

He grins lewdly and doesn’t answer, waggling his eyebrows instead as she huffs a reluctant laugh.

“Get out of here, you sleazebag” she grumbles good naturedly and he does, feeling a lightness that he hasn’t had for months on his chest.

She’s getting better.

 

*****


End file.
